A pseudo-event ... comes about because someone has planned it, planted, or incited it. Typically, it is not a train wreck or an earthquake, but an interview.

But rather that we should lose our sense that neither can become the other, that the traditional novel form continues to enlarge our experience in those very areas where the wide-angle lense and the Cinerama screen tend to narrow it.

The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we have put in their place.

Reading is like the sex act - done privately, and often in bed.

A sign of celebrity is that his name is often worth more than his services.

. . . the messiness of experience, that may be what we mean by life.